


Fifteen Years of Experience

by grey_sw (grey)



Category: Moon (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2010-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:23:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grey/pseuds/grey_sw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One robot, eight Sams, and fifteen years, give or take six months.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fifteen Years of Experience

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Omorka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omorka/gifts).



Sam Zero -- the "real" Sam Bell, the original -- trained with GERTY for six months before his clones were to leave Earth. He and the computer lived together in a full-scale mock-up of Sarang Base, complete with a rover outside. Lunar's executives said the training would give both GERTY and the clones the experience they needed to survive, alone, on the far side of the moon.

The training pissed Sam off. He was a professional astronaut, chosen over a hundred other candidates for the position; babysitting a stupid computer felt like a waste of his time. And babysitting it was, too.

"Go ahead, introduce yourself," the Lunar exec said, on Sam's first day. "You two will be spending a lot of time together."

Sam snorted, looking up at the machine. It was housed in bright plastic, as white as everything else on Sarang and as clean as a toy on Christmas morning. It hung from a thin rail on the ceiling, and its arm, a meter-long appendage with a three-fingered hand on the end, dangled from a smaller one. It had another arm with a pincer, too, and a screen with a cartoon smiley-face on it.

Sam said nothing at first, and the smiley-face went on looking at him. The machine's camera whirred abruptly, then fell silent. Finally, Sam stuck out his hand.

"Nice to meet you," he said, letting a little impatience creep into his tone. "I'm Sam Bell."

The camera whirred again, focusing on Sam's hand. The machine's arm twitched on its rail. But it didn't shake, and it didn't speak.

"We say 'nice to meet you,' GERTY," one of the computer techs said. "We shake hands, like this." He walked up and shook Sam's outstretched hand, oblivious of Sam's annoyance. "You see?"

"I see," said GERTY. "Nice to meet you." Then it extended its hand, slowly, as if unsure of itself.

Sam shook it, half expecting it to crush him. But it didn't. Its hand was soft, like a human's, and so gentle he barely felt it.

By the end of the six-month training, GERTY knew how to shake hands, and warm up dinner, and help load the Helium-3 containers. It knew how to watch television, and did so for hours on end while Sam was sleeping, learning more about human customs. It knew how to run the comms equipment, and reported back to Central each day, even when Sam didn't ask it to. By the time the training was over, Sam was beginning to speak to GERTY as if it was alive. Not like a person, of course, and not quite like a dog. Perhaps not even a cat, but alive.

\---

Sam One, the first clone, was activated three weeks after the original returned to Earth. This Sam already knew GERTY: not just from implanted memories of the training on Earth, but from three or four weeks' worth of additional scenes, randomly chosen from a selection of domestic moments on Sarang. His minders hoped he'd take to the machine the way the real Sam had, without an expensive and unproductive getting-to-know-you period.

They were right. The third sentence Sam One spoke was "'Course I remember you, buddy."

This Sam had a lot of ideas -- ideas which, unbeknownst to him, had been placed in his mind to help him stay busy, and thus unaware. He started a model of Fairfield, building the Town Hall and a couple of trees. He doubled his garden, taking cuttings from Plants A, D, and F. And he taught GERTY to play checkers.

"See, you have to take these pieces," he said, holding one of the black pieces in his hand. "You have to get them to the other side, and while you're doing it you're trying to capture the red ones by jumping over them."

"Why, Sam?" GERTY asked.

Sam shrugged. "Because that's the point, GERTY. That's why. It's a game."

"Like the tests in the infirmary," GERTY ventured slowly. Sam blinked. He'd forgotten about those.

"Yeah, GERTY, but just for fun," he finally said. "It's not serious. Just give it a try, OK?"

"I will, Sam. Thank you." GERTY's arm swung down, neatly plucking one of the red pieces from the table. It whirred, shifted, and put the piece down again, one space forward.

By the time Sam One fell ill, he'd stopped playing checkers with GERTY. He couldn't win anymore. As he lay in his bed, dripping with sweat, he decided that GERTY _might_ be alive like a cat, after all.

\---

The second clone built the street outside the Town Hall, complete with streetlights and a couple of little people. He taught GERTY about people, too. They watched TV together, and Sam answered GERTY's questions.

"Picard is upset," GERTY said one day, in the middle of _Star Trek: The Next Generation_.

"'Course he is, GERTY," Sam muttered.

"Because the aliens took over the ship?" GERTY finished, in a less confident voice.

"Well, that's part of it. Mainly he's mad because those aliens lied about needing help."

GERTY paused. "Picard dislikes lying?" he asked.

"Everybody does, GERTY."

"Everybody. Always? Even when the lie is for their own benefit?"

Sam paused the show. "Yeah, GERTY. Nobody likes a liar. You can't just hide things from somebody. Eventually they're gonna find out, and then you'll be in trouble."

"I don't want to be in trouble, Sam."

"I didn't mean _you_ , GERTY," Sam sighed. "It's only a show. Look, just remember that lying isn't a nice thing to do, OK?"

GERTY said nothing.

\---

Sam Three named each of the He-3 harvesters, after books of the Bible, just to make it easier to keep track of them. He built another wooden car, and half of his childhood street. He taught GERTY how to whistle.

He died a week early, hemorrhaging on the floor near the Helium-3 pod. GERTY had to drag his body through the base, all the way to the escape vehicle. It took quite some time to clean up all the blood.

\---

Sam Four named his plants after the directors of various astronaut movies. He was starting to grow more sentimental, though of course he could never have known that. He and GERTY talked for hours, as he worked on his model or ran on the treadmill. GERTY soaked up his lessons like a sponge. It -- he -- grew more capable every day, until Sam trusted him to run the base even when he was awake.

GERTY was a real help when he got sick. His servo-arm fetched water and blankets for him, and gauged his temperature through gentle, plastic-padded fingers against his forehead.

"Thanks, buddy," he said, clutching the cup of tea GERTY had brought. "I appreciate it."

"Anything for you, Sam," GERTY said. "I'm here to help."

Sam nodded, coughed, and sipped his tea. GERTY moved to pat him on the shoulder, and he jumped a little in surprise. Then he covered GERTY's hand with his own, just for a second.

GERTY switched from his frowning-face to a smiling one, and all of a sudden Sam thought of his childhood dog, a golden retriever named Champ.

 _Glad I'm not alone up here,_ he thought.

\---

By the end of Sam Five's contract, GERTY had taught _him_ patience. He'd learned not to blow up at everything, not to yell and stomp around when he didn't get his way. He felt wise and in control, as if his tumultuous life on Earth was no more than a mirage. He was really looking forward to showing Tess.

He thought, between coughing fits, that things were finally turning around for him.

\---

Alone in the rover, dying, Sam Six couldn't stop thinking about it.

 _GERTY let the other Sam outta the base,_ he thought to himself, too far gone to mutter. _He let him find me. Let him **save** me. He must've known Sam'd find me, but he did it anyway. On purpose. Why? Why'd he--_

He broke off, overcome by the urge to retch. For a long moment, all he could do was hold it down, desperately afraid to puke inside his helmet. His nausea faded slowly, like a wave rolling off a beach, leaving him where he'd been before.

He remembered: _helping you is what I do._

Maybe that really was the answer. Maybe that was it: the reason why GERTY had given him the password to the Sam Bell database. The reason why GERTY had helped both of them stay clear of Central. The reason why GERTY had awakened another clone, even though Sam and the other Sam couldn't have forced him to.

Maybe that was why GERTY had saved his life, such as it was. He'd wanted to help Sam, and that alone had been enough, enough to let him truly do so: it had opened a loophole, a tiny crack in the trap Lunar had built around them both.

 _'S a pretty good reason, I guess,_ Sam thought. He knew the score about GERTY: a neural net made him able to learn, able to reason, able to feel... sort of, if smiley-faces and voice modulation counted as feelings. Lunar had told him all this when he -- when the first Sam -- first started, that day when GERTY had refused to shake.

Nothing GERTY had done for him felt like smiley-faces or voice modulation. He suddenly realized that he had two friends in all the world, a clone and a computer; it was like the punchline to some sad joke. He laughed about it for a while, spitting blood against the inside of his visor.

The sixth Sam Bell had two friends, and went to his death ashamed of neither.

\---

"You sure you're OK with this?" Sam Seven asked. GERTY smiled at him.

"Of course. The new Sam and I will return to our original programming as soon as I've finished rebooting," GERTY said. Sam looked at him, at a machine he'd barely had time to know, and scowled.

"We're not programs, GERTY. We're people. You understand?"

GERTY said nothing. He merely turned, exposing the breakers that would wipe his memory banks, deleting fifteen years of experience. The back of his chassis was scarred and pitted, no longer white and new. Dried coffee rings marred his cupholder, and there was a mark where somebody had melted the plastic a little. A yellow sticky-note -- _KICK ME_ \-- was next to it.

Sam paused, then reached out and flipped all three switches. They snapped into place with a series of satisfying clicks. He turned to go, turned back, and snatched the note off GERTY's back. He felt almost angry at himself, and he didn't know why. It was as if some part of him, some lost memory, knew more about the meaning of this than he did.

As he lay in the escape pod, hurtling toward Earth, he thought about it now and again. _We're people. We're not programs._ He'd only said it to get GERTY to understand, but now he felt a little bad about it -- after all GERTY had done for him, not to be included seemed cruel, even if it was true. _If_ it was true. By the time he'd reached Earth, though, he was feeling better about it. He'd managed to say it the right way, after all, without even meaning to.

 _We're not programs._

He'd meant him and the other Sam, of course... but maybe _we_ was a bigger word than he'd thought.


End file.
